


a point at which a function takes an infinite value, especially in space-time when matter is infinitely dense

by MagitekUnit05953234



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Dogs, Hinted ship, Homestuck References, M/M, Mostly Gen, POV Umbra (Final Fantasy XV), Time Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:08:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21844201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagitekUnit05953234/pseuds/MagitekUnit05953234
Summary: Umbra is a dog.Well, that isn’t quite right. Umbra is a Messenger, a divine being in service to the Astrals, capable of Seeing every moment in every timeline in the universe —Doomed or otherwise— and allowing mortals to See glimpses of timelines they do not inhabit as long as magic burns in their blood.This is true.However, Umbra is also a dog.Neither of these facts can be denied.
Relationships: Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 4
Kudos: 82





	a point at which a function takes an infinite value, especially in space-time when matter is infinitely dense

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MathClassWarfare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathClassWarfare/gifts).



> I've never written anything quite like this before but it was a great time!  
> Title taken from Lexico's dictionary, defining "singularity"

Umbra is a dog.

Well, that isn’t quite right. Umbra is a Messenger, a divine being in service to the Astrals, capable of Seeing every moment in every timeline in the universe —Doomed or otherwise— and allowing mortals to See glimpses of timelines they do not inhabit as long as magic burns in their blood.

This is true.

However, Umbra is also a dog.

Neither of these facts can be denied.

⊱ ────── {⋅. ✼ .⋅} ────── ⊰

The best thing about the Alpha Timeline, Umbra has decided, is that Lunafreya particularly enjoys throwing sticks in the gardens when she is young.

Other Lunafreyas are similar, of course. Most timelines have a Lunafreya who is gentle, kind, and stronger than her demeanor would expect. Not all of them are as willing to entertain dogs with silly games, though.

This is what Umbra enjoys most about the Alpha Timeline. 

Until the Niflheim Empire attacks in three years, the True Oracle does not care for much more than bothering her brother, reading fantasy novels in the space between her bed and the wall of her bedroom —dubbed her “secret hideout” after something she read in her favorite book at the time— and playing with her dogs.

Umbra enjoys it while it lasts. While he can always find another timeline where the peace lasts forever so he can gambol about in the fields with Lunafreya for as long as her little life lasts, overseeing Doomed Timelines for too long always feels like someone is rubbing his fur the wrong way over and over again.

On this particular day, it is too rainy for Lunafreya to be allowed outside. Her nurses fear she may become ill if she were to, and that is true. In the Doomed timeline where Lunafreya sneaks outside today, she develops a grievous illness that her mother is just barely able to save her from.

Umbra sits at Lunafreya’s feet beside his sister, Pryna. While there are Prynas spread across all timelines unlike Umbra —who is a single being existing everywhere at once rather than a split deity like Pryna, the other Messengers, and the Astrals— Umbra prefers  _ this  _ one to all others. She is part of the Alpha Timeline after all, which means she is inherently more Correct than all other versions of herself. Plus, she smells better.

“This is rather boring, isn’t it?” Lunafreya speaks to no one in general, though Umbra knows that his and Pryna’s presence adds a level of acceptability to this situation when viewed through a human lens. Speaking to oneself is flawed behavior while speaking to a pet is less so.

Umbra may know everything there is to know about humanity, but he is hardly skilled in discerning  _ why _ it is they do and think what they do. That is something Shiva is better at... and she has apparently never deemed it important to impart that knowledge to her two greatest Messengers. These days she has become far too distracted with acting as her own Messenger to have much to do with Umbra and his sister anyway.

Umbra yawns. Lunafreya slides down from her chair to sit on the floor between Umbra and Pryna, settling in on her calves and sliding a hand down Umbra’s head to scratch behind his ears.

Yes. The Alpha Timeline’s True Oracle is unparalleled in this skill. Every other one does it wrong.

Umbra drifts off into sleep with Lunafreya’s fingers carding through the thick fur blanketing his haunches.

⊱ ────── {⋅. ✼ .⋅} ────── ⊰

The air here burns Umbra’s nose, acrid and foul in its enduring wrongness. It isn’t like this for any other living being here, divine or otherwise judging by Pryna’s happy yipping and sighing in the midst of sleep. The setting  _ is _ rather pleasant if one can ignore the stench of Doomed possibilities that lay thick over this timeline like snow in Ghorovas Rift, eternal and devastating. 

“Hey Umbra,” the King is happy here, unaware of the fact that eventually this timeline will collapse in on itself for its deviations from What Is Meant to Be. Umbra has not spent a lot of time here due to his distaste for Doomed timelines, but Umbra can’t help his curiosity on occasion. “How’s it going, boy?”

Umbra can’t reply properly, but he barks and burrows his nose into the King’s outstretched hand.

“Aw man, Umbra’s here?” The King’s companion, the artificial human, appears in the doorway into their small house —sitting comfortably on a rocky outcropping above the River Wennath— and hurries out when he sees Umbra. “He just hanging out or did Luna forget she has a phone again?”

“Just hanging out I think,” the King waves his companion over. They both crouch down and the King’s companion is the first of them to reach out to touch Umbra, scratching under his chin and down to his shoulders. The metal ring on his left hand catches slightly in Umbra’s fur with each scratch and after a few moments of that Umbra huffs and turns his head to ward away the mild discomfort.

“Enough of that, huh?” The King’s companion laughs quietly, drawing back to a standing position. “Guess we’re dogsitting for a bit?”

“Guess so,” the King smiles. “I always wanted a dog.”

⊱ ────── {⋅. ✼ .⋅} ────── ⊰

The King is tired. He slumps into the mattress of the military cot he has commandeered, drawing the thin white flat sheet over himself like a shroud. He sits quietly for a moment underneath the cover before groaning and drawing it back down, turning onto his side to face where Umbra sits across the room.

“Do you think you could take me back? Just,” the King’s voice breaks here, the resolve in his voice wavering now that it is very unlikely the Accursed will hear. “Just for a little bit. It doesn’t have to be long.”

What the King views as being sent backward through time is not anything close to that, but Umbra hasn’t the ability to communicate that with him so Umbra offers a quick nod and hauls himself to his feet, padding over the concrete floor to where the King’s hand hangs limp from the bed.

Umbra is incapable of sending a mortal through time or across universes. It simply cannot be done. The best that he can do —and only for those blessed by the Astrals— is allow the Blessed to See themselves as they are in another timeline whilst halting the flow of their own timeline around them momentarily. It has nothing to do with moving the mortal and everything to do with opening their perception to Doomed timelines running in similar paths to their own. They cannot live that way forever, as mortals —Chosen or not— are unable to handle experiencing Doomed timelines without eventually Dooming their own. The Chosen King has some leeway, which is why Umbra is able to indulge him in his desire to live in happier times for a little while, but even he will eventually See too much for this timeline to be viable any longer.

The King does not know any of this and never will. Bahamut, who exists as a plurality rather than a singularity like Umbra, has little reason to impart that knowledge during Reflection. Umbra is unsure as to whether the Alpha Timeline’s Bahamut is even aware of the multitude of timelines that lay through, beneath, and beyond the universe He knows. 

“Can I go back to the Vesperpool?” The King requests. The quaver in his voice grows with each word. “That one day when Ignis slept in and Gladio made eggs. They sucked, but Ignis was actually rested for once. It was… I mean. You know that one, yeah?”

Umbra shifts through the Doomed lines where that event occurred exactly the way that the True King recalls. As long as the branch in the line occurs far enough along that the King will fail to See it, he will be in little danger of realizing the nature of his “time travel” and will be free to continue his life without sabotaging anything when he is ready to “return.”

With a bark and a touch of Umbra’s nose to the King’s hand, time turns to syrup around them.

The King breathes out a word of thanks and closes his eyes.

⊱ ────── {⋅. ✼ .⋅} ────── ⊰

The Prophecy is fulfilled.

As the sun rises over the city, Umbra watches its ascent through squinted eyes. He feels oddly fatigued, and the sensation of all other timelines winking out once and for all is uniquely unsettling. Umbra is no stranger to Doomed timelines collapsing, it happened constantly for as long as Umbra himself has existed. However, none are springing up to replace them. Nothing new is branching off from the Alpha Timeline and the crystalline brilliance of the world around Umbra is fading in time with the strengthening of the sunlight. There is no longer a Plan in place for the world, and all paths taken are just as True as the ones that constructed the Alpha Timeline for all these years.

It is so strange to no longer be constantly flowing through a pulsing mass of events and non-events. Umbra blinks, and just like that he is a simple dog in a single world devoid of gods, daemons, and magic.

A few hours pass after the sunrise. Announced only by the throaty rumble of an engine long-neglected, a boxy military vehicle trundles down the broken remnants of an expressway long abandoned, slowing to a stop across the street from the Citadel that Umbra lays beneath. A human steps out, seeming to survey the scene for a moment before crossing the street and approaching the first step to the Citadel’s door. His advance is nothing like the frenzied run up the steps that the King’s companions did after daybreak, nor is it the morose march with which they carried the King away. Every placement of one foot is followed by a wince and a slight buckle of the knee before he places the other, but the man still pushes onward.

“Oh,” the man pauses, staring down at Umbra after nearly walking right past. “Umbra, right?”

Umbra has no response to give. He draws himself up to a sitting position and offers his paw. Though divinity has drained from the world, dissolving like mist into the Void, Umbra can still sense the remnants of old magic on this man. Not only did this man serve the Chosen, but he was also once steeped in the power of the Father and the Grave before him. This man is interesting.

“Here,” the man digs in a pocket in his coat before drawing out a biscuit, meaty-smelling in an artificial sense and shaped somewhat like a bone. “Kid gave me one of these to give to Cerberus, if you’d believe it. I think you’d appreciate it more.”

Umbra can’t complain. He accepts the biscuit and follows at the man’s heels as he resumes his journey into the Citadel, wondering if he may get another if he stays close.

As it turns out, he does. 

If Umbra has to settle for a life without the fabric of time tangible and malleable beneath his paws, then it may not be so bad if it stays like this.


End file.
